2015 Annual: Good year, bad year

As 2015 comes to an end Mumbrella takes a look at the people and brands which will want to remember it for a long time and those who can’t wait to forget it.

Bad Year

Dick Smith

Like the adventurer who gave the business his name, Dick Smith electronics has trodden a challenging path in 2015, trying to keep the investors in the stock market happy while keeping the customers flowing through its doors.

As competition from retailing rivals kept the pressure on, the brand found itself overwhelmed with surplus stock and profit warnings saw the value of the business slip by 60 per cent.

A last minute fire sale to clear the excess got the cash registers ringing but also labelled Dick Smith as a brand in trouble.

Social media outrage over staff getting first dibs on stock didn’t help, nor did the brand’s founder taking pot shots from the sideline.

The brand lost a series of senior marketing executives in quick succession including former Coles marketing boss, Tony Phillips, supermarkets marketing lead Jess Gill and finally its CEO, Grant O’Brien.

Former beer baron Gordon Cairns took on the role of chairman vowing the brand would do better with a retail repair job some have dubbed a mission impossible. To top off the Annus Horribilis, Get Up hijacked Woolies Christmas campaign to target Woolworth’s heavy investment in pubs and poker machines.

Mediacom

The media industry’s dirty little secret, the existence of value banks and the misreporting of audience figures to three of Mediacom’s biggest clients, emerged in late 2014, but hung over the agency in 2015 like a dark cloud.

The fallout was swift and wide, with Foxtel moving its account immediately.

GroupM Chairman John Steedman summed up the situation when he revealed the results of an external audit of Mediacom by EY. “I have never seen anything of this magnitude happen to me personally and so it has been incredibly difficult and stressful to deal with, but we have managed our way through it,” said Steedman.

The report was followed by the departure of Sydney MD Geoff Clarke, finance director David Reid and finally CEO Mark Pejic, leaving the agency bereft of the majority of its senior leadership team.

In October Mediacom announced GroupM New Zealand boss Sean Seamer would take on the role of Mediacom CEO, with the healing to begin.

An early pioneer in the digital space, AIMIA ran an accredited education program and a successful awards show. Dwindling membership put financial pressure on the association and the appointment of the new CEO in November last year was not enough to stop the rot.

The awards will still take place next year, but then AIMIA will be no more.

Droga5

The dream came to an end for Droga5 in 2015. The agency, launched on behalf of David Droga by David Nobay, Sudeep Gohil and Marianne Bess with high hopes and plenty of hype.

The agency struggled to sell it’s ideas to clients as time went on, while Nobay, by his own admission, lost focus and concentrated on play writing and appearing in a Woolworths branded reality show Recipe to Riches.

Massive growth after winning Woolworths became curse for the agency, and the loss of the business in 2014 signalled the beginning of the end, with observers lamenting what could have been.

Tajer tapped UM Australia CEO Mat Baxter on the shoulder to join him in New York as global chief strategy and creative officer.

Tajer also pulled of a heist on rival Starcom, convincing veteran John Sintras to jump ship and join him as president of global business development and product innovation.

Now dubbed the Entourage, the trio are set to reshape Mediabrands – when some of them finish their gardening leave.

Aldi

2015 saw the German upstart reach a critical mass in Australia with Roy Morgan reporting that Aldi’s market share had grown from 3 per cent to more than 11 per cent.

While still dwarfed by Woolworths and Coles, the quirky price comparison campaigns by BMF, along with the supermarket chain’s strategy of offering weekly bargains ranging from socks to pool cleaners, has seen the number of Australians visiting Aldi each month grow to nearly 50 per cent of all shoppers.

Gyngell spent the intervening years rebuilding the business to the point of taking it back to the stock market after the disaster of private equity ownership. Along the way he divested the company of the publishing business and made Nine a credible competitor for to the Seven Network.

In an era where content is king, King Content proved it in spades. A groundbreaking $48 million deal with Isentia saw the businesses make the first major move on the content front as Isentia looked to King Content’s platforms that managed content and analytics.

Isentia CEO John Croll said the deal answered the questions its clients were asking.

“For quite some time now, Isentia has been looking at how we can work across owned, earned and paid media,” said Croll.

“Our clients are already getting a lot of information from us in this space, but they are also asking us to help with their strategy.”

Simon is Mumbrella's marketing and advertising editor. In a career spanning journalism and communications over more than 30 years Simon has become one of Australia’s most respected analysts and commentators on the advertising, marketing and media industries. A regular commentator on radio and TV, Simon has also worked in media in the US and UK .